


Sins of the Father

by RedStarFiction



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:36:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5375429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedStarFiction/pseuds/RedStarFiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short piece - possibly to be extended further - based on a prompt I received imagining Brianna telling Jamie about the blackmail and what she had used against John and Jamie then confronting John about it. This piece sort of developed outside of my original prompt and took its own course, focussing much more on Jamie and John and in the second chapter I went completely AWOL and focussed entirely on J+J. <br/>I am normally much better behaved with my prompts! :)<br/>Please forgive my indulgence and I hope you enjoy the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jamie sat beside John and cleared his throat. The smaller man jerked as if Jamie had physically prodded him and swung round, eyes bleary with sleep to see who was there.  
“Forgive me, I am afraid the heat of the fire sent me into a doze…”  
John muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up straighter, his heart lifting at the sight of his friend. Jamie smiled at him and waved away his apologies  
“It’s late, there is no reason that ye should be awake and I beg ye pardon for disturbin’ ye.”  
“Is everything alright?”  
“Aye, but I owe ye an apology on behalf of my daughter.”  
“Oh?”  
John wondered exactly which part of Brianna Fraser’s effect on his mental and physical health Jamie was preparing to apologise for.  
“She told Claire that she resorted to … underhand methods to gain help from ye.”  
“Ah the blackmail. Well she’s made rather a mess of it by telling your wife *after* I have been of assistance. Perhaps your time would be better spent explaining the concept to her!”  
John snapped; colour flooding to his cheeks as the mortifying ramifications of Brianna’s spilt knowledge settled on him.  
“I wouldna ha’ let her go through wi’ it. Ye ken that.”  
Jamie shrugged, accepting John’s outrage but offering no further reparations.  
“I doubt Brianna would have gone through with it of her own volition anyway but I am irked that she told her mother. There was no need …”  
“True and I intend to speak wi’ her about it. But ye ken well enough that I ken what ye are and Claire was no’ unaware o’ it either so no harm done.”  
John pulled his bottom lip inward and bit down on it. He was finding this conversation increasingly uncomfortable and rather wished Fraser would leave it alone.  
“Well. Alright.”  
He said lamely, flowery oration did not seem fitting and frankly, he did not have the energy for it.   
“It is no my business what ye do…”  
“Correct…”  
“But,”  
Jamie lifted his voice above John’s own interruption and gave him a look which compelled silence even as John felt anger sliding up from his gut and words coiling in his throat.  
“Ye are the ward of my son and I would hope that ye ha’ more discretion around him.”  
If John’s body had not been rendered as good as paralysed by Jamie’s statement he was sure he would have hit the man and half-healed head be damned.  
“I would ask that you leave my chambers at once Sir.”  
He managed finally but Jamie made no attempt to move, simply keeping his eyes trained on John. The firelight through shadows across his face, causing those slanted eyes John knew so well to seem more like shards of sapphire stone.   
They sat silently for perhaps a minute longer and then Jamie blinked and stood up.  
“What I said may seem cruel, but the fact is that my son has only one father who he kens and loves wi’ his whole heart and it is no’ me. I dinna wish for him to lose ye, or his idea of ye, do ye understand?”  
John found his voice in earnest and was pleased to find it did not tremble or stutter despite his emotions  
“I assure you Sir, Willie is my priority in all things, however as you may have noticed he is not currently with me and so I find myself in a rare position to indulge *my* wants and needs. I did not realise that I was to take into account the sensibilities of every damn Fraser in my vicinity.”   
John’s hands were shaking with outrage and he clenched them lest Jamie notice.  
“My sins are kept well hidden from him, at least as well hidden as yours are!”  
Jamie turned his face away and for a moment John wondered if the visit would end in violence after all. He braced himself and wondered if another blow to the head would kill him and make Jamie’s last statement one of rather great irony.  
“I am glad then, that one of his fathers is a decent man.”  
Jamie’s voice was so low John was not completely certain that he had heard him correctly and he had left the room before John could think of a suitable compliment to pay him back with and seal the lid on their half-quarrel.   
John slumped back in his seat, head throbbing and more exhausted than he had felt in a long time.


	2. When love cannot be spoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not sure where this is coming from now but I can't get it out of my head so here it is. A continuation of an imagined scene between Jamie and John. I have always found their relationship heartbreaking, not because I want anything to happen between them, but because who does not understand, at least to some extent, the pain of unrequited love?

John had lain in his bed, fitfully flitting between wakefulness and sleep for most of the night thinking over what Jamie had said to him. He was torn between outrage at the audacity of the man and fear that there was some justification in Fraser’s concerns.   
Was he discreet? William had never said anything but then at the age of thirteen the boy was only just entering the age at which his father’s comings and goings to slave quarters and strange noises from his rooms in the evenings might arouse curiosity.  
He covered his eyes with his hand, the light from the fire reminding him too much of Jamie’s flaming hair and the look of wary disgust in those deep blue eyes. Of course John could not be sure it was disgust, it could have been pity or maybe a mild revulsion.  
Would Willie look at him the same way if he was to find out? Would he turn his face away from him?  
John wiped the fallen tears from his cheeks and forced himself to get a grip. Just because Fraser implied something did not make it so! Frankly John knew more of Willie’s soul than that man ever could. He may have been present for the first few years of his life but John had been a constant and that counted for something.  
He threw the bedsheets off and stood up, crossing to the balcony and opening the doors to allow some air into the room. The curtains flapped in the breeze and in the fleeting gap he saw two figures below.  
Curious he stepped lightly onto the balcony, the stone cold against his stockinged feet. It was a clear night and the two lovers, for he could now see from the press of their bodies against each other, they were indeed lovers, were bathed in moonlight.  
John stood transfixed, he was not a voyeur in his tastes usually and he was certainly not feeling any impure urges towards the two now, but there was something so beautiful he could not look away.  
One of the figures moved from the embrace and John felt the breath leave his body in a rush of hot air that caused a swirl of mist in the night before dissipating forever.  
Though the light of the moon leant a silver glow, there was no mistaking the russet tones of the head below, or the obvious size of the man now that he was uncurled from the woman’s body.  
John stepped back self-consciously and felt a pain in his chest – a tearing of love and jealousy combined that had him clutching at his shirt as though suffocating.   
He could not bear to watch and yet to not look was impossible, his feet steered him back to the curtain and he moved it aside with trembling fingers. Claire’s laughter floated to him on the breeze and he hated her with such intensity that it shocked him to feel it.  
The moment passed and the emotion died as quickly as it had risen. With more control, he peered down and sighed gently at the sight of the two of them. There was no denying the love that was between them, a love that John had perhaps experienced with Hector and possibly felt for Jamie but … no. Their love was different; it had lasted far longer than most romances and was equally given and received.   
He watched as Claire eased Jamie’s shirt from his back, he knew the scars were there but as distant as he was and in the dim light, the skin simply looked pale and smooth, the rippling quality easily attributed to the shadow of branches overhead.   
Claire’s hands ran down Jamie’s spine, her fingers lightly digging into the slim flesh of Jamie’s hips, pulling him closer. Her lips pressed to Jamie’s shoulder and John felt answering gooseflesh rise on his own skin and reflexively closed his eyes tight. A dog barked and the sound of doors opening forced him to open them again, just in time to see Jamie shrug his shirt back on and clasp a giggling Claire’s hand in his own as they ran, no doubt to find some new spot to revel in each other.  
John stepped back into his room, his body tense and ready.   
He began to dress, slowly, laboriously, his fingers trembling, to go out in search of what company could be willingly had or at worst, bought for a price but a nagging sensation of guilt stopped him.  
The memory of his conversation with Jamie was still in his head, not quite as forcefully as the image of the man in the moonlight but either way his thoughts were with Jamie Fraser and he would find no solace in the arms of another. Not tonight.  
For an awful moment he pondered the possibility of Brianna … shame burned him at the very thought, turning to nausea at the thought of William. Jamie had tested him before for the sake of the boy and whilst this evening had seemed to be more a case of Jamie’s natural prejudice against John’s kind coming out, he saw now it was simply a follow up of that test.  
John blushed furiously and glared at himself in the looking glass above his dressing table. Once again in the matter of William, Jamie’s worst fears surrounding John were proved groundless but had John’s sudden flare toward Brianna, however fleeting, not proved that the man had some logic to his suspicion?  
“Damn it!”  
John roared suddenly, sweeping various lotions, brushes and other domestic pieces off his dresser with a crash that no doubt woke those nearest him.   
He tugged off one boot and then another and hurled each of them at the door before sitting on the bed, his head in his hands.  
“Ye lordship?”  
John closed his eyes at the voice and took a deep breathe. How much more torture would the ruddy great Scot inflict upon him tonight?  
“What?”  
He answered bluntly and heard the door open and close softly.  
“Shouldn’t you be seeking comfort in your wife somewhere?”  
John said stiffly, he was trying to keep his voice level but it was proving difficult. Fraser looked distinctly ruffled and not with sleep.  
“Aye so I maybe should, but I woke to use the chamber pot and it sounded like ye were in difficulty.”  
“You woke?”  
John sneered at him and saw Jamie’s eyes flit to the open balcony doorway and colour creep into his face.  
“Weel I can see ye are no’ in any great peril.”  
Jamie said, his voice almost painfully devoid of emotion and turned to leave.  
“Wait!”  
John’s voice was too loud in the quiet room, strangled and full of the kind of desperation one normally heard only on a stage in a badly acted play, but for all that it made Fraser stop. John stood and clasped his hands together in front of himself.  
“I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you, now and earlier too. I find your presence confusing and sometimes our friendship … it overwhelms my better senses.”  
John could not censor the words as they tumbled from his mouth and couldn’t even as he saw Fraser’s shoulders stiffen he could not stop himself  
“I did not mean to witness you and your wife and I would never seek to shame you, it is only that I felt such jealousy in my heart and…”  
“Aye.”  
Jamie spoke quickly and turned toward John, his eyes bright and angry  
“I dinna blame ye, my wife is a beautiful woman and such jealousy is no’ ye fault. I forgive ye and trust that if ye were not in such diminished health no such accident would have occurred.”  
“Your wife … I am not talking about your …”  
“Yes, ye are.”  
Jamie said sharply and John nodded, trying to force his lips to stillness but his body and his heart were beyond his rational minds control.  
“Will you hold me a moment?”  
“No.”  
The word sliced through John but it also broke whatever mad spell had come over him and he cleared his throat nodding at the towering fury of a man before him.  
“No, of course you wouldn’t. Forgive me, the fever …”   
He made a flamboyant gesture with his hand and hurried back to the balcony.  
“You go back to bed, I will just get a little air.”  
He waited to hear the sound of the door, he prayed for it, because once Fraser was gone he would be able to permit himself to weep or kill himself or whatever else might alleviate the crippling shame.  
Jamie stood a moment undecided, looking at John’s back as he hunched over the balcony terrace.  
He wanted nothing more than to go back to Claire and lose himself in her, forgetting about the sorry wee Englishman who was raising his illegitimate son and seemed destined to be woven into Jamie’s life forever.   
But for all their differences, John was still his friend and for that alone Jamie owed him … something. He did not fully understand what it was but he knew it was something the man needed badly.  
He took a deep breathe, willing himself to move and stepped silently through the doors to stand behind John.   
“If you mean to kill me …”  
“No, I dinna mean to do that. I dinna ken what ye want from me John.”  
John jolted as if struck and turned to face Jamie, the joy of hearing his name on the other man’s lips was so rare and so pure that it startled him into boldness.  
“I want nothing from you that you do not freely give to me Jamie, that has always been true and it will always be true. You are my dear friend and I humiliate us both with these displays of emotion, but …  
John smiled gently at Jamie and leant back against the stone, suffering the chill to prove his lack of intent to touch his friend.  
“Imagine if Claire could not bear to touch you and could not return your … feelings.”  
John chose his words carefully, for all that Jamie was choosing to be near him and offer comfort he knew that the word ‘love’ could not pass between them.  
Jamie’s eyes gave the merest flicker of recognition but he was wearing the mask of indifference that John had never managed to see through and he could not see through it now.  
“I am sorry that ye must hurt so.”  
Jamie said softly and John shook his head.   
“Don’t be sorry. It is not your fault, nor is it mine.”  
Jamie bit his lip and John held his breathe as one large, scarred hand reached across the small space between them. John knew that Jamie could as easily push him from the balcony as he could pat him on the shoulder and he was not sure that a moments touch was worth death, but he was not sure it was not worth it either and so he remained still.  
Jamie’s fingers found John’s shoulder, light and slim beneath the clothing and squeezed gently.   
“Ye are my friend John. Please dinna forget it, or give me cause to.”  
John stayed frozen, long after the feel of Jamie’s touch faded from his skin and the door to his room clicked shut behind the man his heart belonged to.


	3. A Healing Storm.

Jamie pressed his forehead against the cool wood of the door. He had intended to embrace John, he had done so before with a genuine fondness for the man. When he handed Jamie the picture of William, Jamie had felt as if his heart would burst with joy and in his surprise he had seized John in a way no different to how he would have embraced Ian or even his father. It had been familiar and natural but tonight … the things John had said! The hunger in his eyes and desperation of his voice … Jamie swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and butted the door with his forehead in frustration.  
“Shit! Infrin and Damn it!”  
He followed the head-butt with a swift punch and then pressed his bruised knuckles into his thigh to lessen the pain.  
“Jamie?”  
He heard Claire moving in the room, then the door opened and she was before him, his plaid wrapped around her shoulders and hair even more wild than usual from their earlier love-making.  
“What are you doing?”  
She sounded irritated and it gave him something to focus on.  
“I'm sorry mo chridhe, I took some frustrations out on the door, I didna mean to wake ye.”  
“I wasn't asleep, I was waiting for you to get back. And this hallway is freezing, get in!”  
She grabbed his arm and pulled him over the threshold of their temporary bedroom and Jamie felt the warmth of the room soak into his skin, thawing his clenched muscles and chasing some of the darkness from his heart.  
“Come here Sassenach.”  
He said quietly and drew Claire to him, resting his chin on her head and wrapping his arms tightly around her.  
“Jamie, you're shaking. What happened?”  
The concern in her voice pleased him and he could admit it to himself with only a small tug of guilt. He wanted her to care for him, to sooth his nerves and claim him as her own.  
“I dinna ken what happened Sassenach, John was … he was having difficulties wi' himself I think and he asked for my help. I tried Claire, truly I tried but …”  
“You tried? Jamie what did he do?”  
The concern was turning to anger and Jamie drew strength from it, like sipping water after an extended period of intense thirst. He needed her rage to mute his fear.  
“He didna do anything to me, he was sufferin' and I tried to help as best I could, for he is my friend, but his need was too familiar … it was like Randall ken? At the end when we were both so exhausted and I could barely open my eyes, I could hear it in his voice though....”  
Saying it out loud was like lifting a weight that he had not been truly conscious of carrying but now it was gone he felt infinitely better.  
"He meant me no harm Claire, but I didna ken whether I would kill him if I stayed, so I had to leave him alone. Poor bastard."  
Claire however did not share his magnanimous feelings.  
“The perverted little shit....”  
Claire ripped herself from his arms and stomped towards the door, discarding his plaid in her haste and Jamie nearly tripped over it as he lunged for her.  
“Dinna accost him Sassenach, he is raw enough already.”  
He said, catching her arm.  
“I bloody well hope he is! What right does he have demanding that you soothe him?”  
She rounded on Jamie, but had the sense to keep her voice to a low hiss, even in her fury she would not risk bringing scandal or worse upon Lord John.  
“None, but ye canna go down there an' cause a fracas in the middle o' the night. Besides,”  
Jamie reasoned  
“I need ye mo nighean donn.”  
His teeth were chattering again and with one last huff in the direction of the door, Claire relented, ushering Jamie ahead of her toward the fire where he plopped down on the floor like a tired child. She gathered up the plaid and wrapped it around him, tucking the edges around herself as she settled herself between his legs, her back against his chest.  
“Better?”  
“Aye lass. Much.”  
Jamie bent and kissed her shoulder, her neck and her earlobe and Claire smiled to herself, tipping her head to enable him to kiss further, but he pulled back.  
“No. I dinna wish to use ye Sassenach.”  
Claire turned to face him, kneeling and kissing the centre of his brow.  
“Taking comfort is not the same as using someone Jamie.”  
“I ken that well enough...”  
“Good, then let me comfort you.”  
Claire reached between them and felt her husband respond to her touch, hardening in her hand. Jamie's own hands worked their way down her back to her bottom, squeezing lightly. He made a sound in his throat and began to lean forward, tipping her toward the floor but her hand on his chest stopped him.  
“No?”  
“No.”  
She smiled and hitched her shift up to her hips, settling herself on Jamie's lap in a slow squat that joined them as one, her bottom lightly brushing his thighs.  
“Holy God! Claire ...”  
“Shhhh. Gently ...”  
She moved his left hand to her breast and began rocking her hips against him, drawing his entire length slowly out, clenching herself around the tip of his penis and then sliding back down. Jamie barely dared to breathe for fear that he would lose himself completely and finish whilst Claire seemed to have barely begun, but as she gripped him inside of herself again he knew he would not be able to hold on much longer.  
“Sassenach ...”  
“Yes?”  
Claire smiled, quirking an eyebrow at him. Jamie made a noise at the back of his throat, half-way between ecstasy and distress and heard his wife give a low chuckle in response.  
“Easy … Jamie?”  
“Aye?”  
he croaked, gripping fistfuls of tartan to try and keep some control  
“You are mine. Do you understand me? Mine.”  
Her voice was steady but ferocious and it sent shivers through his body.  
“I am.”  
“You told me once that there is a difference between understanding something and truly knowing it in your gut. I'm in no position to give you a hiding as you suggested...”  
Jamie laughed at that, though the movement sent fresh waves of pleasure through him and made him gasp.  
“... but I do want you to know it, so that whatever any other soul asks of you, you know who you belong to.”  
Her eyes, whiskey and fire, like a tigress in her prime locked with his own and held him as tightly as her grip on him elsewhere. He was utterly transfixed and utterly at her mercy.  
“I do ken, I ken it well Claire.”  
“Then show me.”  
She whispered, tipping her body back, drawing him down on top of her and wrapping her legs around his back.  
Their love-making was not gentle. They ravaged each other, kissing and biting until pain and pleasure blurred into one sensation that consumed them entirely. Jamie cried her name, the word acting as his battle cry, a talisman against his demons.  
It was over quickly but like a sudden storm on a summers night, that quenches the thirst of the earth with a sudden, vicious rain; it left behind it a stillness and newness that they needed to break the oppression of history and of fear. Jamie lay beside his wife and traced the fragile curve of her collarbone wondering, not for the first time, how someone so fragile could wield such strength and light and pull him back from darkness time and time again.  
“My braw wee Sassenach.”  
he murmured, and allowed himself to give in to sleep just as the light of a new day touched the windows.


End file.
